Saturday letters to the editor

For 44 years I taught school, 34 of them in Leon County. I also spent time as a dean in the Student Affairs office, dealing with student discipline.

In my opinion, arming teachers is a mistake, and would put just one more task on these professionals that belongs elsewhere. I have seen far too many disciplinary referrals turn into a “he said/she said” argument that ends up at the county office, often decided in the favor of the student. One can only imagine the controversy the shooting of a student, under any circumstances, would create.

During my career I had my life threatened many times, was hit, kicked in the face and had to wrestle students to the ground. I have removed weapons from lockers, automobiles and students. Still, arming educators is not the answer.

Words cannot express my sorrow for these students, who leave for school one morning, never to return home.

Something has to be done, but this idea is not the correct one.

Art Witters, wittersa@gmail.com

A gun owner supports gun control

I attended the student march on the Capitol, and I support significant measures to reduce gun violence, as well as to limit access to weapons capable of mass violence. And I am a gun owner, and I vote.

It is past time for the stranglehold the NRA and its chief lobbyist in Florida has on the Legislature to end. And it is long past time for the NRA to return to its original purpose, that of advocacy for hunting and sporting rights, instead of being a bullying mouthpiece for gun manufacturers and fear mongers.

I consider any legislator who receives an A rating from the NRA to be a coward, and complicit in making our schools and our public spaces less safe. More guns in more hands will never make us safer.

Let's enact what every other sensible developed country has already done effectively, and end unlimited access to assault-type weapons and high capacity magazines, and require stricter background checks. Let's start now.

Bill Barnes, Apalachicola, bbarnezz@gmail.com

The gun is not to blame

The AR-15 did not get itself down from the shelf, load itself, go to the high school in Parkland and kill people. A person did the planning, purchased the high-powered rifle, and did the killing.

It is thoroughly unreasonable to blame a mindless machine for the terror that took place in Parkland. Florida has enough laws and political actors in place to help prevent school shootings. We need more money to do what needs need to be done.

We have Congress, and the federal government, the governor, the state Legislature, circuit court judges, state prosecutors, county sheriffs, local police officers, security agencies, school boards, the Department of Children and Families, and other professional psychiatric evaluators of children and adult behaviors.

These agencies should coordinate their efforts to create a law enforcement program through which to thoroughly investigate those children and their families who have been, or are presently involved in, violence other than self-defense in their homes, on school campuses or in our communities.

It is time a more thorough effort be made to legally identify and adjudicate family members who are contributing to juvenile delinquency and the criminality of violent youthful adults.

Pelvo White, Marianna, mockingbirdfeather@yahoo.com

Boycott businesses that sell assault weapons

Tired of talking to politicians who nod their head, but do nothing to ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines? Take action with a nationwide boycott of stores that sell assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. Use your social media savvy. Use your media spotlight while you still have it.

You can do what politicians are afraid to do. Keep your focus on the target – just assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. Most Americans will rally and support you, including many hunters and gun owners.

Ronald Lee, Tallahassee, takenumber0@gmail.com

If guns aren’t the problem, neither are nukes

Some argue that guns aren't the problem, people are; so don't ban guns.

Would their logic suggest that drugs aren't the problem, people are; so don't ban drugs?

Or, would their logic suggest that nukes aren't the problem, people are; so don't ban nukes? Just asking.

Jerry Curington, Tallahassee, gerald_curington@hotmail.com

Five steps to ridding the nation

of the mayhem

1.) Ban high capacity rifles and carry out a buyback program;

2.) Institute deep background checks;

3.) Register all guns, including bullet samples so that a bullet fired by the gun can be traced back to its owner;

4.) Make owners responsible for locking up their guns away from kids and thieves and for reporting gun theft; and, most important

5.) Carry out an exchange program for handguns: your old handgun for a new one with safety technology built in, so only the owner can fire it. We know from the experience of Australia and Scotland that this one will make a huge dent in suicides and almost eliminate street shootings.

This will take time and it will be costly, but if we can spend $25 billion on a wall to make people feel safer, we can spend a few billion on this over a period of several years.

By the way, everything I said above is permissible according to the Supreme Court justices who, after deliberately misreading the Second Amendment as protecting an individual’s gun rights, commented many laws could be passed to restrict those individual rights.

William Murdick, Tallahassee, wmmurdick@comcast.net

Banning assault-style weapons

is the answer

So the NRA wants to arm teachers and our president took the bait. This seems to be an attempt to distract from the fundamental issue, which is that banning assault weapons, weapons of war, is the proven preventative of mass shootings, in Australia since 1996 and in our country from 1994 to 2004. Not gun-related deaths overall, not suicides, but mass shootings.

A ban on such weapons as the AR-15 now is supported by the majority of gun owners and the public in general. The high velocity cavitation shock wave of such ammunition causes wide damage beyond the path of the bullet. And the number of projectiles that can be fired in a minute can be extraordinary.

Of course, arming teachers would do nothing to prevent mass shootings in nightclubs, music festivals, churches, law offices, railroad cars, sporting events and other public places. The students from Parkland have it right.